In the 90s, we worried about Nirvana 'selling out'. I wish that concept still made sense | Dan Brooks

Big data has helped the music industry sell us only what we already like - but the results are less alive and less surprising

I was 14 when Kurt Cobain of Nirvana appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing a T-shirt that said CORPORATE MAGAZINES STILL SUCK". Even at that tender age, I found his message worrisome: if Rolling Stone sucked, why was he on the cover? Maybe the shirt was ironic. Maybe his participation in the profile was ironic. Or maybe, alarmingly, he saw no contradiction between his shirt and his appearance in this corporate magazine, because we were all supposed to understand that any assertion of meaningful values in popular music was inherently bunk, even though many of the songs on Nevermind were clearly about me.

Cobain's interview did not do much to resolve these ambiguities. After limply defending Rolling Stone as having some good articles, he added: I don't blame the average 17-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout."

Dan Brooks is a writer based in Montana